Oracle Pays $23 Million To SEC To Settle Bribery Charges

Oracle has paid $23 million to the US Securities and Exchange Commission to settle corruption charges that subsidiaries in Turkey, United Arab Emirates and India used 'slush funds' to bribe foreign officials to win business. The Register reports: The SEC said on Tuesday that Big Red violated provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) during a three-year period between 2016 and 2019. The cash that was apparently surreptitiously set aside was also spent on paying for foreign officials to attend technology conferences, which breaks Oracle's own internal policies and procedures. And the SEC said that in some instances, it found Oracle staff at the Turkish subsidiary had spent the funds on taking officials' families with them on International conferences or side trips to California.

'The creation of off-books slush funds inherently gives rise to the risk those funds will be used improperly, which is exactly what happened here at Oracle's Turkey, UAE, and India subsidiaries,' said Charles Cain, FCPA unit chief at the SEC. 'This matter highlights the critical need for effective internal accounting controls throughout the entirety of a company's operations,' he added. Oracle, without admitting or denying the findings of the SEC's investigation, has agreed to 'cease and desist from committing violations' of the anti-bribery, books and records, and internal accounting controls of the FCPA, said the Commission.

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